Mister Hicks made a mountain of money in the leveraged buy out and private equity industries before he started buying up professional sports teams. At various times he's owned the Mesquite Championship Rodeo, fifty-percent of the Liverpool FC (soccer), the Dallas Stars (hockey) and the Texas Rangers (baseball), which he sold in 2010 for around $590 million. Many reports indicate Mister Hicks has lost a significant amount of his net worth over the last few years but make no mistake he and the missus remain filthy rich and financially able to live in whatever manner they choose. Their decision to sell their vast Dallas estate likely has less to do with their declining but still substantial wealth and far more to do with the fact that they're empty nesters rambling around in a house more than ten times the size of the average American home.

The stately and downright imposing main manse was originally designed in 1939 for Italian count Pio Crespi and his American wife Florence by distinguished high society architect Maurice Fatio and acquired by Mister and Missus Hicks about 16 years ago for an unknown amount of dough. The Hicks spent 5-10 years and—according to Candy's canaries—close to $100,000,000 on a soup-to-nuts renovation, restoration and expansion headed up by motorcycle riding and leather gear loving New York City-based architect Peter Marino.

We're not sure exactly how many bedrooms and bathrooms are in the main house and/or on the property but Your Mama thinks it's probably safe to say there's plenty to room to comfortably house several families.

The grounds are a studied mix of manicured and rustic and include meadow-like rolling lawns, long allees of mature trees, a spring-fed creek criss-crossed by stone bridges, rose and vegetable gardens, several ponds and water features and dense forests woven with quiet pathways. There's also a resort-scaled swimming pool, and adjacent a pool house with recreation facilities and movie theater, a tennis court and second guest house.

The next owner of the Hicks' estate may want to know that maintaining the vast estate will require an astonishing amount of water. Even with a private well Mister and Missus Hicks consistently rank among the highest users of water in a state regularly racked by drought. In August 2011 reports numerous multiple media outlets in the Dallas/Houston/Fort Worth area reported that Mister and Missus Hicks used 1.35 million gallons of public water for the month of June alone and in July 2012 the Dallas Morning News reported they consumed a total of 12,315,020 gallons of public water in 2011.

Like we usually do when it comes to dissin' and discussin' high-priced real estate in Dallas Your Mama gave the deliciously dishy Dallas-based property gossip Candy Evans a ringy-dingy and asked if she thought there was much of a market for a $135,000,000 house in Dallas. She told us, "It is likely there is not a market in Dallas for a $135 million estate but I have no doubt there will be offers because where else can you have 25 acres and horses and be 8 miles from downtown? But then, never underestimate the power of oil money. One local tyke owns a home on Turtle Creek Blvd. plus a home in nearby Highland Park just because he likes to have Sunday picnics on the creek. Rich people are nine kinds of odd ducks so maybe some billionaire oil tyke will indeed thinks it's worth it to cough up $100 million plus for 25 acres to ramble around in?" Well, stranger things have happened, haven't they?

This blog is great for showing us the bloated life styles of people who in fact do next to nothing for humanity but who have been able to accumulate vast amounts due to the US government favoritism for financial manipulation. Clearly taxing these bloated billionaires and their ridiculous hyper mansions would do the US a world of good. But they have so much influence and power due to their money (the US isn't much of a democracy any longer in spite of the recent election) that they use to buy the government it is not likely there will be any reversal of fortune any time soon. I think the middle class needs to wake up and get mad. There that said, now you can coo and goo over his "luxurious" palace.

Watching this video, I can almost smell the Swarowski light fixtures. I was hoping I could keep putting in coins to keep it going so I could see the interiors. But alas, no money shot in this real estate porn flick.

I was prompted to go to see what has happened to Albemarle House, the Patty Kluge Moses estate near Charlottesville. Evidently it was finally sold by the Bank of America September last to Donald Trump and his son for 6.5 million, about the price of a pleasant home in the Hollywood Hills. He says he is thinking of turning it into a boutique hotel. Better that than a house for some super greedy financier. It does me good to hear of super rich nobodies (she started as belly dancer, did she not?) end up with a thump at the bottom of the hill. I do hope she has enough money left to feed her dog.

Hi dolls, Candy here, siding right up to the tollway is no biggie in Dallas. We love our cars (Bentleys preferred) and that proximity makes the getaway to the ranch all the faster! This truly is the most exquisite home in Dallas, maybe all of North America!

What these photos and the accompanying video don't show you is how much of a dump Dallas is when you zoom out.

Candy, you can keep your sh!tty horse and cow crap smelling hot as hell, dry as hell ranch, I will be out on the lake in my Fountain or on my golf course where my grass is actually green because I get rain.

The greatest estate in America? Certainly not. But a FABULOUS property, none the less! Really, truly fantastic. The location by the freeway is unfortunate- and the neighborhood doesn't seem particularly attractive- but what a place!!

While neither my cup o' tea nor desired neck of the woods, it does demonstrate the level of country home construction circa 1860-1940 that has sadly evaporated in this country.

"...siding right up to the tollway is no biggie in Dallas. We love our cars (Bentleys preferred) and that proximity makes the getaway to the ranch all the faster!

Um, darlin', the appeal of proximity fades in direct proportion to traffic noise & exhaust fumes -- ask any owner whose multi-million dollar estate abuts the LIE -- most are on their way to condo developments.

There is plenty to blame them both for, it amazes me how little people know about there actual actions. Even though so much is publicly available. There really is very little difference when actual actions versus rhetoric is taken into account.

Oy vey, Candy from Dallas is quite the typical Texan bitch. You can clearly tell she's never left the state as she thinks it's possible for the most spectacular house in North America to be in Dallas. HA! And she thinks there's a plus side to living on top of a freeway. What a delusional notion that is. This is a magnificent estate, certaintly the nicest in Dallas, and probably Texas. But Candy, have you heard of the Newport Mansions, and there's many equally spectacular old estates in the Back Country of Greenwich, or the Hudson Valley, or the North Shore of Long Island. There's even a few still left in New Jersey's old hunt country and Philadelphia's main line. Lets not forget Palm Beach, the Northern suburbs of Chicago, the hills of Los Angeles known as Holmby and Beverly, and then San Francisco. Catch the drift Candy, Dallas ain't no where near as nice as you think it is.But Candy you hit the nail on the head about there not being a market for such a highly priced house in Dallas, but as you said there certaintly will be offers. Go figure, only in Dallas could someone sell a house priced out of the market. Tis' what happens in the land of oversized egos.

Rabbi, I couldn't agree more about the LIE. I can recall many times where the traffic moved so slowly I was able to turn off my car and read a book. I once saw someone lose the door off their car because traffic stopped for so long they had stepped out for a bit and when traffic started moving again someone didn't look twice. They really need to have signs at the entrances of the LIE that remind people to take a handful of Xanax as there will be a parking lot 10 minutes ahead. That is of course if they don't use up all their nerve pills crawling along the Belt parkway before hand, or while flipping off yuppies on the Montauk Highway the night before.

LGB..history will speak for itself regarding all Presidents. Obama's the "wars are now over" talking points will not play so well on the next attack against this country, wether here or our oil suppply. We only need to look to Hurricane Sandy to see the patience level of the USA. Undoubtedly Obama will say at that time "I inherited..." as thats the only card he knows how to play. Oh that and the social justice card and we will see how well that works. And for the record, I am a gay democrat who voted for Obama in the first election.

@Andy I would imagine at least $200k. Property taxes are around $750k I believe, throw in utility costs and I'd imagine that brings you to a little over $1m a year just for taxes and utilities. Then consider maintenance on the grounds and house, the salaries and benefits of however many full-time housekeepers, gardeners, security guards. There's the butler or err "property manager", head housekeeper, head groundskeeper, I'd imagine at least 2/3 full time housekeepers and as many full time gardeners. So you're at about a staff of 9 full time employees to maintain house and grounds, then consider the part time employees such as part-time housekeepers for when there's guests, parties, the more intensive cleaning etc. Also part time gardeners that come to do the more general maintenance like lawn mowing. So yeah I'd say $200k would be the bare minimum it would cost to run a place like this. It could quite possibly be double that on the higher end.

I'm going to agree with you that history will determine any presidents reputation, but I feel as though history will remember the Obama years not for his actions but for the inactions of Congress. Never in history have we had such a partisan, dysfunctional, out of touch, and so on. Never before have we had a president who has been able to pass so little on their agenda, regardless of what people's opinion of said agenda may be. I also think the republicans have finally crossed that fine line from being your normal Conservative party to being totally out of touch and stuck in the past. I had been a registered republican, but having been born, raised, and lived the majority of my life in Northeast I'd probably be just barely to the right of center on a national scale. I didn't vote for Obama because I felt the fiscal issues were the number one threat to the country, as noble as his social crusades are, social issues can generally be put off a short period of time if there are immediate more pressing issues, ie. the fiscal ones. But as a resident of Sandy-ravaged NJ, Boehner's decision not to even vote for the relief package was the last straw. I changed my registration the same day. Obama may be out of touch, but barely in comparison to the others.

Of course I need to tie this into real estate and the post lol. We have this guys house, and the house in Woodside that sold for $117m. These two properties are located in the polar opposite locations in terms of politics. Woodside is in the heart of the affluent far left, whereas Preston Hollow is in the heart of the affluent far right. CA has very high taxes on the wealthy, TX has none. These two posts show us how irrelevant fiscal policy is in terms of building or losing wealth. This also shows you that the people on our far left and our far right live the exact same lifestyles! It serves as a reminder that the far left doesn't relate to the middle class enough to know what's best for them, despite claiming they do. And the far right doesn't represent what the middle class doesn't want, despite groups like the tea party claiming they represent the bitter sentiment of an embattled middle class. We should just recognize that it may be unfair these guys get to live in homes like this, but then look at how many people they employee in these homes, suddenly you see there are normal working people all over the country that depend on the lavish lives of the rich to make a living. This blog shows us that it doesn't matter what political ideology is in office making policy, it doesn't matter whether these guys pay high or low taxes, on and on.

Basically to sum it up I just mean that everyone needs to calm down about the rich and stop caring about them so much because they don't matter that much and they don't change that much no matter what. So people need to not come here if they can't handle that. This blog is about the hilarity of how our rich and famous live, to show their taste is just as bad as everyone else's, and to give us something entertaining to read while we pre-game with our gin and tonics.

Pio Crespi and Flo Crespi were my great great grandparents and I remember seeing my parents get married at the base of the staircase. I always loved that house, and whoever is blessed to own it next will fall in love with it as well.

When my great great grandparents lived there (the original owners) I would have to disagree with your argument on rich people doing nothing for humanity and power because of their money. My family did their share, and were blessed to have the life they had. Now, these days yes I can agree with your argument. It's all about money and power and people trying to be better than everyone else. It's sad. But my family heirloom is a beautiful place and more than a palace.

6:46, I hope your grandparents were truly as great as you think they were, but as I have learned from my dealings with the ultra wealthy over the years, there is usually as they say a great crime behind every great fortune.

Most of the wealthy old guys in my town that are beloved now did a lot of dirty nasty things to people when they were younger to get where they are, from gambling, drugs, murder etc. As they say, time heals all wounds and people forget.

You always hear this great country and our great forefathers, when in truth these people stole this land, murdered the Native Americans and enslaved and worked to death a whole race of people. Nothing great about that at all.

Would kill the brokers/owners to slap a floor plan together - I mean, you can't truly appreciate architecture without a floor plan - how rooms flow and related to one another is as important as the style. Sheesh!

Oh gawd, PLEASE, if there ever was a case for NOT allowing real estate agents to crawl their way through a painful presentation of a property, shoving their fat shiny mug in front of the camera and then dragging out painful descriptions in nauseatingly bad, halting tempo. An alleeee of magnolias ?!?!?! WTF ?And and another thing, please shove your grandstanding about 75 architect designed homes up your caboose, because who in this day and age does not design a home of such standard and size WITHOUT an architect ? Redundant twit. EVERY TIME you drive pass through the gates, you're filled with anticipation ?? What, do you have the memory of a fish Mr Agent ?If it were my home, I'd snatch the listing from under his snub nose and stick to the local Remax agent with big hair and even bigger teeth who surely could do a better job !

Oh and I am sorry but I have to close with a rebuff of Mr Camelcoat agent from hell's closing comment, about awe inspiring architecture, which IMHO should be presented in a way that is too, awe inspiring and not cringeworthily painful !

Such big estates require a lot of maintenance! In my personal travels, I have been to mates’ house whose estate covers at least 1 hectare of plot of land and another half a hectare for his home. It is just amazing to find out about the maintenance that goes with it, and it is very expensive to do so. Thus, when buying a house, consider the post-purchase maintenance, which could be more taxing to the owner. There is also some space and human resource management, which could be even more taxing to the owner. What is good with large homes is the ample storage space it entails. These storage spaces are even fit to be someone else’s home, too.

These houses are extremely huge and priced so expensively that my eyes hurt seeing all the zero’s on the selling price. I know in our area that there was a couple who sold their real estate for almost the same price, and they had to rent commercial storage units in the Gold Coast to clear off the items to make way for some selling space. It is amazing how these items take a lot of space. Eventually, they decided to sell these or auction these.